I Can No Longer Shop Happily

Sunday at the Whole Foods on P Street, I came across something so vile that I’m still reeling 24 hours on. Wedged between the stacks of Yoga Today and Saveur was a selection of music targeted squarely at the Whole Foods customer.

This wasn’t new age music enjoyed by 50-something men with ponytails who wear linen lounge wear. It wasn’t the kind of tepid collection of world music that speaks to ex-Peace Corps volunteers. And it wasn’t the sort of Music for Aging Cougars (Antigone Rising) that Starbucks sells.

I couldn’t make out the entire collection because the line snaked down the better part of one aisle, but even from a distance, I could tell that it included Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky and the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible. There’s something that strikes me as inherently wrong about this. It’s enough to make a girl want to set fire to the nutritional yeast, knock over the display of fish oil supplements and throw a punch at the nearest self-important D.C. so-and-so checking their Blackberry in line.

Maybe it’s just me, but I like to buy my music from purveyors of music. Not the place that sells me fucking organic free-range chicken. What bothers me most is that I can be targeted in this way. Some marketing genius looked at the data and predicted with frightening accuracy that the people who can afford to shop at Whole Foods fit into a demographic that’s going to like Arcade Fire. Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s probably true. But it proves that we are all a bunch of crashing bores.

Can we just stop this cross-marketing bullshit, right now? Why must everything be about creating an experience apart from its original intent? I don’t want an outing to buy groceries/coffee/books to be about anything other than the experience of buying groceries/coffee/books.

There is an experience I’m looking forward to this week that I hope will be totally pure, divorced of marketing gimmicks and about nothing more than watching one of the greatest bands of our time play their music. I hope Wilco rocks our collective Whole Foods-shopping, organic-eating, supplement-taking asses off Tuesday and Wednesday at the 9:30 Club. See you there.